


Always rocking out the best in your Sunday best always (Holding out the rest for the life-long test)

by Kealpos



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Angels & Demons, Angel/Demon Relationship, F/M, Mutual Pining, a centuries long slow burn... the tenderness of it all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-31
Updated: 2019-07-31
Packaged: 2020-07-27 11:51:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20045554
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kealpos/pseuds/Kealpos
Summary: Annabeth used to be an Angel, once upon a time. But then she was curious and aching, and Luke's twisting form and twisting praise bolstered her up so high she felt like she could climb higher than heaven itself. Annabeth, in the time that she Is, falls once. Years later, in Greece, her other half will grin at her with a smile like a sea, and spin a tale of Icarus to embarrass her.Annabeth falls once. She thought she was defined by this. But then, she rises.





	Always rocking out the best in your Sunday best always (Holding out the rest for the life-long test)

**Author's Note:**

> Quick note: Annabeth is the Demon, Percy is the Angel. Just making sure you don't get confused!
> 
> Title comes from Sunday Best by The Valiant Vermin. Give it a listen!

She's the first one to the garden.

It's been some time and no time since she first fell, and after the first little bit, when people would see her questions as amusingly devilish, before she started asking about how Hell would be run and built and questioning Satan alongside God, well. She grew restless, and bored, and still too curious. The Principality who she followed down no longer gave her the time of matter, so all she could do was wait for orders, watch the universe slowly drift down from where it was made up in Heaven, and ask questions.

She's half sure the only reason they told her to go up and cause a little mischief was because of how irritating she could be. Still, she rushes to her assignment quickly as she can, ready for anything. She's been aching to do something for ages, especially when an Authority took her aside one day in the Before and warned her to be patient for the true meaning of God's plan, and that he saw that she would be saved by a Principality.

She half figured he was messing with her, because she didn't need to be saved from anything. Then she met a Principality who had gotten a long scar from trouble with the Plan, and she figured he was the Principality who "saved" her from the apparently untouchable unquestionable plan God had.

Then she fell, and he seemed to abandon her. She doesn't like thinking about it.

-

"What do you think of the Earth, Uriel?" An arm snakes around her shoulders, and she grins. The asker is a Principality. Not the one with the scar; the one with the silver glow and the many eyes, bright and cold blue.

"Don't call me that. Eventually, you're actually going to summon Archangel Uriel, and then you'll have to explain why you're going around, calling me by her name."

"Oh please. You would love that! You're practically obsessed with her. Anyways! Opinion on the Earth plan God is making?"

"I'm curious to see how it all goes down. Wouldn't it be fun, if they actually made it?" The Angel smiles, and flaps her wings once, then twice, sending a cool breeze throughout the room.

-

It's said the smallest of gestures can create the biggest of avalanches. That a single flap of a butterfly's wings can cause a tornado. That's nothing, practically nothing, compared to the double-flap of an Angel's, however.

-

Her name used to be something else, and then she fell, and then it was something else. The scarred Principality took a swan dive to hell. She was trying to claw her way back up from the moment she felt it burn, but it was done. She hadn’t so much fallen as she had been pulled down. She screamed for him to let go of her, it was too much it hurt too bad and he shouted in her ear _get a HOLD of yourself, An-_

And the memory ends, restarting when they’ve landed in Hell, and she’s panting and her hands are all scraped up raw and red against the ground.

They call her Antaeri now.

-

He keeps in his human form and his hair is as dark as when the sun goes down on the horizon and he appears unassuming and a drip of liquid comes from his mouth to his chin and his eyes stay closed. She cannot see his sword, the one supposedly made of water, and she is fascinated.

She slowly changes out of her other form - she was allowed one, she took two, Hell only grudgingly approved. An owl and a snake. Uriel supposedly made them, and she had always looked up to Uriel, you know, before.

Once she's in human form, she takes another minute to look at him, before the glistening trail from his mouth distracts her. She hasn't had the form long, she doesn't know it's intricacies, and this is curious. So she reaches out, rubs it away, and is immediately dismayed by how not-great it feels. She wipes it on his clothing thing, and that, apparently, is the thing that wakes him up.

He scrambles to his feet, his eyes suddenly blown wide open, and she stumbles back in surprise. In an instant, his sword comes to his hand. She realizes then, that with a sword made of water, it doesn't have to stay in one form.

"What are you-" he manages out, and she swallows. His eyes are a deep green.

"You drool in your sleep," she mumbles out, before turning on her heel and flying away fast as she can. She hears him slump against the ground, and though she’s wondering what his reaction to seeing her is, she does not look back.

-

He doesn’t smite her, so she doesn’t smite him. She doesn’t even know what he’d be smiting her for, doesn’t know what she’s even here for, but she supposes being on the opposite side is enough to warrant it. Instead, he seeks her out.

She’s in owl form when he comes to visit her for the first time. She’s perched up high in a tree that holds sour yellow fruits she kind of likes. Lemons, they’re called. Still, they’re sour enough that the mortals, Adam and Eve they’re called, don’t come by.

“What are you doing up there?” He calls up to her, no sword in sight, adjusting his chiton so it sits more comfortably on his wings. She takes a moment to get a good look at him, and smiles despite herself. Well, she doesn’t _really_ smile. It’s hard to smile when you’re an owl. She just kind of radiates amusement.

To humor him, she shifts back into the more human form, cracking her neck when she gets it. It’s uncomfortable to gain a socket pivot and lose the vertebrae, she decides, and makes a note to not shift them in. She makes sure his focus is on her before she purposefully rolls her eyes at him.

“The better question is: what are you doing down there?” She calls, and several seconds pass where he doesn’t respond, at which point she realizes he’s just staring at her, simply kind of awestruck. “What, never seen a demon before?”

“No. I haven’t,” he responds earnestly, and she’s a little taken aback at his genuineness. It gets a laugh out of her, which is kind of good. She likes funny. She hasn’t been around real actual funny in a long time. Sure, he isn’t trying to be funny, but she doesn’t doubt that he can be hilarious if the situation calls for it. All Angels are a little bit hilarious, even if it's just in that way you laugh when someone trips and falls.

“I was being mean, for the record.”

“Well, that’s fine I guess.” There’s a pause. “I drool in my sleep?”

She allows a smile to creep onto her features. “Yes. It was almost dripping off you. Pretty disgusting, Angel.” He laughs, and the happiness in her drops and feels cold. He can be humorous to her, if he wants, but she decides she doesn’t want him to think of her as funny. She’s sure it’ll turn to comical, turn into mocking if she doesn’t set the record straight. “If that’s all you came for, I think I’ll be taking off to elsewhere.”

She grabs onto the branch she was sitting on, and swings down, hitting the ground in a strong, purposeful stance. The grass is soft beneath her feet, and she faintly compares the color to the Angel’s eyes, then quickly dashes the thought away.

She shakes herself a bit, ruffles her feathers, and turns to fly off somewhere else, with the Angel just standing there and watching her. She prepares to launch, and he finally seems to grab hold of himself. “Wait!” He yelps, and surges towards her, managing to grab her wrist. “What’s your name, anyway? Because it’s stupid to just call each other Angel and Demon.”

She turns slowly, straightening up and facing him. She looks at where his hand is gripping her, becoming lax as she stays, and for a moment, she’s just confused. Then she grits her teeth and drags his hand off. “Don’t grab me again, got it?” His hands come to his side, and she sighs. “It’s Antaeri. Don’t wear it out.”

At that, she rotates back to the lemon tree, and this time, she doesn’t crouch to fly. She just begins to walk off, plucking a lemon out from a branch as she goes past. Behind her, he’s left frozen for a minute before finally yelling at her, “Mine’s Persmare!”

She doesn’t look back, but he knows she heard it all the same.

-

The second time, she visits him.

“That doesn’t happen when I eat fruit,” she points out, coming up next to him, shifting out of her serpent form. He looks at her for a second before refocusing on the site ahead of them. She finally properly looks at Persmare, who’s got a dangerous look on his face. Something in her stomach twists, and she turns away from him.

“It’s not the fruit,” he finally mutters, like she doesn’t really know what happened to poor, poor Eve. She tries not to take offense to it, she knows he just saying things without meaning to hurt her. They may be on opposite sides, and they may not have talked much, but he doesn’t seem like he would hurt her on purpose unless she had done something particularly heinous.

“Oh. I know. I’m just saying.” She pauses, and leans forward, bracing herself against the top of the wall. “They’ll have things to eat out there, right?”

“Yeah. I mean, hopefully. I mean, you knew this was coming, right?” He asks her, and she makes an indecisive noise.

“Yes? I wasn’t really trying to do much of anything. I just heard that the apple tree was off-limits for some reason, and I decided it would be fun to get them to eat from it. I was just told to come up here, make trouble, you know how it is.”

“Not really.” He sniffs.

“Oh, what, you’ve never been a troublemaker? You’re the one they sent down to Earth, Angel,” she says a little smugly. “They wouldn’t have sent you down if they didn’t find you irritating.”

“Yeah, well, what does that say about you being here?” He snaps back, not unkindly, just in the same tone. In response, she snorts.

“You hurt me, Angel. You cut me deep.” She grins at him, and she catches the barest hint of a smile on him, before both turn their attention back to the humans struggling through the sand. They’re facing down some animal thing, and it doesn’t look all that pleased to see them, like all the animals in Edan had. “They’ll be fine. I’m sure of it.

“I guess that’s up to God,” Persmare replies shortly, and she rolls her eyes.

“It's like, I'm not even sure why God is so pressed about it. You'd think it'd be good for them to know right and wrong, so they can choose to do well. I mean, it's just like… giving them a moral compass, right? Without knowing what's wrong or right, they could accidentally do something wrong, because they didn't know any better.” He frowns at her, pulling out his thinking face. She's sure she's right, she's typically right about things. “I mean, they were all for not eating the apple until I said they should, because they don't know any better. After they ate it, they instinctively knew it was wrong to, oh, I don't know, be all greedy or whatever. Now they can choose what exactly they want to do with themselves, and they can choose to listen to what others say, rather than just having to take everything at face value.”

“I guess you're right.” He winces, like it hurts him to say as much. She catches a glint of something in Adam’s hand in the distance, and in a swift move, the animal they were facing comes down with a roar.

“What's that? How did he take the lion down?” She asked, mostly to herself, using a hand to shade her eyes from the sun as she squinted out.

“That would, uh. Be my sword,” Persmare muttered, and she blinked once. Turning to him, she laughed incredulously.

“I'm sorry, that's your sword?”

“Yes, I, I gave it to them,” he stammers, shying away from her gaze. “It's just, I couldn't, uh, protect them from your influence, and there's dangerous animals out there, and she's showing already, so, that's my sword. It's made of holy water, so it can be summoned away when not in use.”

She stares at him for a couple of seconds, just gaping at him in awe, before finally turning away and telling him with a smug little smile: “I think we're going to have fun, you and I.”

-

“Were you the one that got that whole Cain and Abel business thing started?” He asks her one day, casual as can be, for someone who she hasn’t seen in months.

She went down to Hell for a bit, got a commendation for her job in the Garden, and when asked where she wanted her posting, she thought of the Angel, and told them: Earth. When asked why, she said something about wanting to follow up on the humans and how gullible they were, and she was sent on her way. Meanwhile, the Angel told her that God had asked him once about the sword when he was closing up the opening to the Garden the next day, and after he made something up, he wasn't bothered or recalled. So the pair of them stayed.

“Cain and Abel? Like, the sons of the humans?” She laughs sharply once. “Last I saw them they were doing well. Playing. I figure that’s how all humans will be. Visited Eve once after the birth, and discovered how pathetic babies are, really.”

“Pathetic?” He raises an eyebrow, momentarily distracted, and she just smiles, her eyes lighting up a little.

“They’re tiny. They don’t spring out a fully grown, fully formed consciousness. They can’t feed themselves, or speak, or walk, really. Didn’t even have object permanence yet. They rely entirely on their parents,” she informed him, and even his face grew a mushy little smile. He conceded, they were pathetic.

“That’s not the point though,” he finally said once he got a hold of his mental track. “And this tells me you really don’t know what happened. It’s upsetting.”

“Tell me.” He tells her, about Cain and Abel, and the sacrifices, and the rock. She decides she doesn’t like it when humans kill each other. She was awfully fond of Abel.

“Why’d you think I had anything to do with it, though?” She eventually asks him, and he has the decency to look guilty.

“I just figured it was, uh, one of your sides things. I mean, the envy of the praise, and then the actual, uh...” He simulates bashing a head in, and she scowls at him. He looks uncomfortable, and she feels the same way. She also feels just a little bit hurt.

“Right. Because I’m a demon I like killing. Right.” She pushes herself up, and folds her arms, preparing to launch off. “Don’t blame me. You could redirect the blame anywhere if you give it enough thought. I mean, well, it’s your job to prevent evil or whatever, or going even higher, you could blame God themself for praising unequally.”

His face scrunches up, and he looks a little pained. “I don’t think that’s very fair,” he finally manages. “I mean, the blame doesn’t fall on me or God. Neither of us wanted anything like this. I mean, come on.”

“Then I’m glad you can see why it isn’t fair to blame me either.” She pushes herself up, and flies off away from him, because she doesn’t like his stupid face and the way he just assumed it was something _she_ would’ve wanted.

“Antaeri!” He calls out to her. “Come back! That isn’t what I meant! I-” At that point she flies far enough she can’t hear him say anything else. Thankfully, he doesn’t follow after her. She still refuses to look back at him.

-

He apologizes a week later.

“I expected you to be able to hold out a little longer,” she informs him when he comes around, her mouth upturned to the side in some sort of half-smirk. “We can't be friends if you're going to be that weak, Persmare.”

She's leaning against a lemon tree, one she took the seed of out of Edan and planted in the harsh weather. A small number of demonic miracles, and she's able to keep it living all the same. It's great shade from the sun, a nice place to curl up in or perch, and the lemons just taste good.

“I don't like fighting with fr- people I know.” She pins him with a look as he stumbles over a word he doesn't want to call her.

“I don't do friends,” she informs him flatly. “I'm over that.”

He freezes, and stares at her for several moments. “Okay.” They're at a standstill, and he looks at the fruit in the tree, still ripe. “If we had swapped places, you insulting me, or whatever, would you say sorry?”

She huffs loudly and tips her head back, so the top of it pressed against the trunk of the tree. “I don't know. Maybe not. I'm too prideful. Haven't said a lot of apologies in my life. Though, I guess Pride is a deadly sin, so maybe it's for the better I'm a little stubborn.”

“Is that Demon logic, then?” He asks, and after a moment of deliberation, leans against the tree alongside her.

“Well, I am a Demon, and I’m talking logic, so.” He kicks her ankle lightly, and she just grins up at the sky. It’s rather pretty. Blue during the day, black during the night, and loads of colors in-between. Her favorite part, however, is the stars. She could stare at them for eons, connecting shapes in the sky. At that point though, despite it being day for another several hours at least, there’s a dark shape coming in on the horizon. “Damn. It’s going to rain later. I hate it.”

“I think it’s great. I mean, water from the sky? Pretty smart.” He uses his hand to shield his eyes, squinting out at the clouds. “It hasn’t rained in a while. Not since the death. God was pretty angry at Cain.”

She hummed in the back of her throat, closing her eyes. She could smell the rain coming. “Well, he deserved whatever he got. That’s what I think.”

“Maybe.” Persmare sounds unsure, so she cracks open one eye, and sees him fidgeting nervously. “I think I agree with you, but I mean, forgiveness or whatever.” She sighs, and stands up straight, stretching out her back with a loud crack.

“You’re just afraid of agreeing with anything a demon says.” She informs, not asks, and he winces, so she knows she’s right. “Well, we’re from the same stock, so I believe you can think I’m right now and then.” She grins at him, teeth sharp as snake fangs visible in the day-light. “Of course, I’m always right, so take that as you will.” At that, he relaxes, laughing breathlessly, and a little Angel in her stomach flutters about.

-

A Principality will save you, she got told once.

Saved from what? She asked, but she wasn’t told anything else. That’s all she was given. ‘Saved.’ Saved from Heaven, saved from The Plan, saved from what? There were stirrings of a revolt back then.

One day, in the Before, a Principality with a silver glow asks her about the Earth, and she flaps her wings twice. Across the room, a different Principality, one with sea-green eyes, felt a quick breeze rush past him, looked over at the source of the wind, and experienced something of a spiritual awakening.

-

They meet up more regularly after that. Every couple of months or so, that’s all. Never more than half a year passes without them seeing each other. It’s a little dance, the pair of them, the way both of them fend off each other’s attempt to get closer and the way both of them will jump back unexpectedly like they’ve been burned.

Persmare likes to sleep, she discovers, and the way the water runs over his skin. They turned their wings inward once humans started popping up more and more, but occasionally, he’ll let them out, and wash them in the rivers, preening them out. She doesn’t like water like he does, or the preening, but she’ll sit on the shores, watching the sky. It’s best when they do it at night, as not to get caught, so she’s able to see the stars.

He comes out of the river one night, dripping wet, shaking his head off to clear the water from his hair. He could just as easily dry it with a minor miracle, but he likes doing it the “mortal” way. She pulls her gaze down from the sky, slow as the sea, to look at him, and he grins at her.

“What are you smiling at, Angel?” He just smiles some more, inches closer, and then in one quick move, shakes all the water off onto her. She yelps, sitting up, and groans. “I’m soaking wet! Did you seriously have to do that!?”

“Seriously.” He’s just beaming like an idiot, and when he sits down next to her, she punches his arm.

She groans once more, and leans away from herself to squeeze the water out of her hair. It took a while for her to find out what she actually looked like outside of abstracts, like her neck having the turning ability of an owl’s, and the hair reached to her mid-back. She asked Persmare once, and he told her her eyes were gray, like rocks, and that her hair was dark at the roots, and the rest was a light yellow.

“It’s… curly. Kind of knotted,” he told her then. “I could brush it for you sometime. It’s like - preening. But for the hair. Figured it out by watching the humans do it. Makes it look slightly nicer, and Eve said it was less uncomfortable.”

She watched him, her face deliberately blank as she tried to establish was she was feeling. Anger, confusion, a little bit of temptation of the Angelic sort. After she couldn’t pin it down, she just told him “No,” and flew off, fighting an urge to be a little bit sick, and didn’t talk to him for nearly eight months.

But that was then. She brushes her own hair now, as horribly tempting as his offer sounded.

“You’re insufferable,” she informs him seriously as she squeezes out the last of her hair. “I can’t believe I'm here talking to you. It would be better if I never saw you ever again, and I hope you understand how much of my sanity I’m sacrificing every moment I’m around you.”

“Are you done?” He’s laughing at her, and she knocks shoulders with him. He sighs happily, and turns his gaze upwards, to where she was looking before he came out of the water. “What’s that constellation?” He asks, pointing up at a bundle of stars. She follows his finger, and smiles, just a little.

“Do you actually care?” She says it like she's amused, though she hopes he does. As much as she doesn’t want to admit it to herself, she likes it. She likes when he listens to her talk about things, about the stars, about the made-up pantheon of Gods, like Zeus and Athena and Poseidon. He particularly likes Poseidon.

“Of course.” He says it so casually, like it’s no big deal at all, his assurance. A few years back, he might not have, but through slow going, she trusts what he says. “Now hurry up. Tell me about it, o foulest of Demons.”

“Shut up.” She hums, and takes a good look at the stars he pointed to, quickly formulating a story in her head. “That is… Perseus. I told you about Medusa already, right? How she got turned into a gorgon that could turn people to stone? Well, it’s Perseus who killed her, oh yes. A son of Zeus.”

“Can he get a happy ending? None of the heroes ever get any happy ending.” She turns her head to watch him for a moment, the way he’s gazing up in a sort of wonder, and she rolls her eyes, interlocking their ankles together.

“Alright, Angel. Perseus gets a happy ending. He’ll kill Medusa, and on his way home, he encounters a princess chained up to a rock. Her mother offended Poseidon, said she- the mother, that is, let's name her Cassiopeia -was more beautiful than the sea nymphs. Posiedon flooded the kingdom and sent a sea monster, and in hopes of stopping it, she chained up her daughter, oh, Andromeda, as a sacrifice. Persues, on his way home, saw Andromeda, and saved her by turning the sea monster to stone with Medusa’s head. They got married, and they built a kingdom together, living happily. That good enough for you?”

He grins brightly at the night sky, and she feels her stomach do a barrel roll. “Well, we can work on the details.” She can't help but laugh.

-

If there was one thing she loved more than Persmare, it was the humans.

He loved the buzz, the noise, the crowds, but she loved the cities, and the people that populated them. When he asked why, she rolled her eyes, and told him stories about the women and their children in the village, about girls who learned to loom, about the breadmakers, about the fishermen, about the boys who brought her flowers sometimes when they didn’t know her much outside a pretty face sitting day after day in their town. He didn’t get it, but she guessed he didn’t have to. She didn’t get the sea like he did.

That’s why, one day, when she caught him in a crowd of people and he explained what that big boat was there for, she felt like she was falling to Hell all over again.

“But they- but they can’t!” She said with a choked voice. “They're going to kill them? All of them?” She hissed, and he frowned.

“No, um. I mean, that boat is going to hold this guy, Noah, and his family, and the animals.” He tapped his foot against the ground like he did when he was nervous, and she felt awful.

“But everyone else? What about the boys? And the kids? You can't kill the kids,” she murmured desperately. “I mean, God's doing this what for, wiping out the sinners? The kids haven't done anything wrong.”

“I don't know. I'm sorry, I really don't know.” She watched the animals board with growing horror, and felt the first drops of rain tumble down. He no longer thinks of rain as genius, not after that.

In a move he would later chalk up to just trying to comfort her, Persmare intertwined his hand in hers.

-

She doesn't speak for weeks after the water leaves.

It isn't that she's just not speaking to him, but she doesn't speak to anyone. Noah had his wife, and they had their sons, which had their wives, but that was still too little to entirely populate a planet again, especially without cousins marrying one another. So Persmare decided to help a little bit, doing a little bit of prompting, which allowed the family to create a new line of people through rocks, simple enough.

In just a few days, the area is booming. Mortals slowly setting up camps and farms and getting the animals to start to populate themselves as well. The cities of the old are gone, but there are people again.

She still doesn't speak.

They hid on the boat together, down with the animals where they wouldn't get caught, because if they stayed on Earth they'd drown, and being discorporated was irritating, even if not fatal. She miracled a window on the side of the port, and just stared out of it for hours as the water rose.

Hour four, she began to cry. He didn't try to talk about it, he knew she'd be embarrassed. Instead, he just sat with her, and wrapped his arm around her shoulders, holding her tight. When the water reached above the window, he miracled the glass away, swallowing the bile in his throat as a limp body of a young girl drifted past.

Eventually, the water dried, and thus, the world was cleansed. They came out with the animals, her; disguised as a snake. He; disguised as a horse. They got a good look around, and then she slithered off from the rest, Persmare running after her.

“Are you alright?” He asked her, shifting out of horse form when he finally caught up to her. She was just standing there in the middle of nowhere in her human form. Well. The flood washed everything away. He guessed everywhere was nowhere from then on.

“There used to be an amphitheater here. For telling stories,” she murmured, and then she didn't say anything again for weeks.

The humans are kind enough, and they treat them well. Everyone makes sure there is enough to eat, and if he does a couple of miracles to help the crops grow or the animals survive when it's most crucial, well, Heaven can't really get on him about it. He's just helping humanity to survive.

“Is she alright?” They ask softly about Antaeri, with her empty eyes, and her hair in untouched knots.

“In shock,” he reassures, just as soft. “She'll be okay, I'm sure of it.”

He brings her bread and greens, and when enough livestock is born to start eating meat, he brings her that too. She never was obsessed about food, and to tell the truth, neither was he, but it helps keep up pretense, and it's a system. She always did like a system.

It takes a month and a half before she speaks again. It's late at night and he's found another river, and he's washing his feathers like old times. He set her up nearby, and despite everything, the stars twinkle overhead.

“Persmare.” A small voice calls from the side of the river, and he pauses washing out his left wing.

“Antaeri?” He calls back. He says her name loudly, when he'd like nothing more than to whisper it like a prayer.

“Persmare, can you-” She breathes in deeply, makes a shuddering noise. “Can you brush my hair for me? Please?”

He stares at her for several seconds, his eyes wide and his mouth upturned in a sort of shocked smile. Then he moves into action. “Alright, Wise Girl. C’mere.”

He leads her into the river, warm in the night, and slowly washes and brushes her hair. She sighs, and the tension in her shoulders falls away.

“Thank you,” she whispers some time later. “Thank you for taking care of me, and not- Thanks for sticking around, and talking to me still, even when I wouldn't say anything to you.”

“It's nothing. You'd do the same for me.” He says it casually, like it's a fact, but she goes still under his touch. “Right?”

“I mean. Of course. That's not- I wouldn't abandon you.” She's silent for a little bit, and he can't help but feel sick.

“I really wouldn't abandon you if the positions were reserved,” she finally says. “I'm not that kind of person. Er. Demon. It's just.. You say it like it's so easy. Just caring for another being, and expecting that care from another being.”

“It is that easy. It's just being nice.” He untangles a particularly stubborn knot in her hair, and she hunches forward. “Are you okay?”

“I'm a Demon. I'm not supposed to be nice, or want nice.” She sounds bitter and small, and he wants to do nothing but hold her until the sun rises.

Instead, he just hums and pours another bit of water on her hair. “Well, Demon or not, I think you deserve a bit of kindness.”

She's silent again at that, moving her hand through the water as he continues to work his magic on her.

“Finished!” He exclaims with a grin once the last knot frees itself and he can tug his hand through the hair without much difficulty. “I do declare thee: untangled.” Her hand drifts back to run through it, and he catches a hint of a smile on her own face.

“Thanks.” He shrugs, and goes to stand back up, but quick as a flash, she grabs his wrist, and is staring up at his face, something akin to desperation in her countenance. “I didn't really fall, you know. I was- I was following someone, and then he pulled me the rest of the way down when I had second thoughts, and then he never talked to me again.” Her hand goes lax and then drops off his wrist. She refuses to meet his eye.

“Oh.” He looks at where she gripped his wrist, and thinks back to the garden when he asked her his name. “He sounds like- like an asshole.” When he moves to watch her again, she's covered most of her face, but he can see her grinning triumphantly, like she's won something.

“Yeah.” Her hands drop into the water, and she laughs. “Yeah, he really kind of was.”

-

If he thought it took her ages to come back to normal after the flood, the time for her to start talking again was barely half of the time it took her to regain herself after the Tower of Babel.

Objectively, the flood was worse. It had more casualties, and it happened for less of a reason, but the Tower really cut into her deep for several reasons.  
1\. She had been so excited about it. So excited. Years and years had passed since the flood, and there was a booming city, filled with the most wonderful people. The children listened as she told them in hushed tones about the stories of the pantheon of Gods; the young men needled him about her apparently being his “girlfriend” when he watched her talk; the baker knew him and Antaeri well enough that he knew what they liked and pulled it out before they even ordered. It was nice.

Then one day, she ran up to him, and there was pure joy radiating from her. She couldn't sit still as she told him about the plan the people of the city were formulating. They planned to build a tower tall enough to reach Heaven.

“You aren't just excited about this because you want to find a way back to Heaven, do you?” He asked, wary, but feeling giddy all the same just by seeing the light in her eyes.

“Of course not, angel! I'm not trying to reach Heaven, I know where I am with them. Besides, I'm very happy here on Earth.” She said it with such authority, the topic of her want for Heaven was put to rest, for another century at least. “I'm excited about it being an architectural marvel! I'm excited about the height and the strength! Imagine, even if they can't reach Heaven, which I doubt they can, it's still so impressive! Something to communicate that they were there, and they stood tall, for generations to come! Something so permanent, not just in body but in mind, not even another flood can wash it away.”

2\. She had found a sort of family in the city. After telling Persmare about the Demon née Principality that dragged her down and proceeded to forget she even existed, she opened up about another Principality with bright blue eyes that she had left in the fall.

(“Three in a row. You really have a thing for Principalities,” he joked, and much to his surprise, her mouth fell open in shock.

“What do you mean?” She had all but yelled at him.

“Um, I, well, I'm a Principality too. That's why they sent me down, other than me being a weirdo troublemaker they wanted to get rid of. Um, an Authority handpicked me, actually. Is this relevant?”

Her eyes bugged out of her skull, and her throat bobbed as she swallowed. She opened her mouth like she was going to say something, but instead, she turned and ran and avoided him for a week and a half.)

After she told him about her Angelic family, once upon a time, something seemed to shift between them, between her and the whole of humanity, really. She found a family in the seamstresses, and the shepherds, and the children, and the other storytellers, and the young women that would sit with her and watch as he and the young men swam in the river. She was dragging them to family dinners - a different family each night. It was high volume and high velocity and hyperactive and she grinned maniacally as they hopped houses. She grew connected.

Those were the two reasons. She was excited, and she grew roots.

Then one day, she and he traveled out to a distant forest to collect fruits they didn't grow at the city, and when they returned the next day, the city was empty.

“Um. God, what… what happened?” He prayed upwards while she hid, not too far off. Just enough that she hopefully wouldn't be seen, but she could still hear.

“They were attempting to create a tower to Heaven. I think we both know why this cannot happen. So, I confounded them. I switched their languages so they can't understand one another, and just as a precautionary measure, I scattered them across the world. Good idea, yeah?” God responded back, and he couldn't speak. He could only nod, his mouth dry.

“Uh, uh, yeah!” He finally stuttered out, and forced a grin. “Great idea, you've done it again! Alright, thanks that's all I needed, bye!” He said in a rush and disconnected them as quickly as possible.

A little bit away, Antaeri came around from the corner where she had been hiding. “You get all that?” He choked out past the dryness in his throat, sitting down with a loud thud.

She just nodded, and he could see the light in her eyes die out. She braced herself, and in a sudden moment, the whole Earth shook, and the city fell to pieces all around them. The tower, facing her back, crumbled. Then, as unexpectedly as it started, it stopped.

And she didn't speak for a year.

-

His go-to phrase for the next couple months after the Tower of Babel incident, as they walked across the globe on foot, was: “Tell me the story of Perseus again.”

She didn't, she never did. Sometimes she wouldn't react. Sometimes she would glare at him. Sometimes she would just sigh, like she was just waiting for him to give up on her. He refused to do that. He had told her he wasn't going to abandon her, and even though he hadn't explicitly promised as such to her, she promised it to himself.

She made it so hard though, sometimes.

He missed her. He really missed her. She wasn't gone physically, but she wasn't herself, and he missed her. He missed her stories and her cleverness. He missed the way she exchanged banter with him and he especially missed the way she would sometimes look at him like he was something worth keeping, not the way she would look at him then.

Then one day, a year after the tower, they passed a lemon tree, and he said “Look, Antaeri. Lemons. Remember how much you loved them? I could get one for you. What do you want?”

Surprisingly, she froze where she was, and he had to jerk himself back to stop his automatic walking. “Antaeri?” When he looked at her, her eyes were closed, her eyebrows pulled tight, and her hands balled into fists.

“What do I want?” She forced through gritted teeth, and then glared at him. “I want you to LEAVE ME ALONE!” She shouted, her voice hot with anger and a twinge of sadness. He stepped back in startlement, gaping at her.

“Why won't you leave me alone!?” She yelled at him, and he could feel raindrops slowly starting to fall to the ground when a moment ago it had been perfectly sunny. “You're supposed to leave me alone! I'm supposed to be so stubborn and difficult and I keep refusing to talk even though it would just be SO! MUCH! EASIER! Why aren't you LEAVING?”

He belatedly realized she was crying.

She brought her hands to her face, and tried to hold back heart-wrenching sobs to no avail, and the only thing he thought to do was wrap his arms around her shaking body and hug her tight. A couple of minutes passed until she loosened herself and started crying directly onto his shoulder.

He rubbed his hand in gentle circles on her back and told her softly, “Maybe you are difficult sometimes, and you say no when it would be just so much easier to give in, but you know what? That's my favorite thing about you.”

After her tears dried up, sometime later, she snaked her own arms around his back. “It would be easier if you left me,” she told him quietly.

“I know.” His voice was serious, and she sighed contentedly despite herself. “I don't think I like choosing the easier path either.”

-

It's all uphill from here, she tells herself.

They land themselves in Greece. She thinks she likes it. She's not ready to root herself the same way she did the last place, she probably won't be ready for a long time, but she likes it all the same.

Ever since he held her while she cried, something had bloomed between them. It was something that was growing between them for a long time, but it really peaked in that year. It's a name she knows, but she can't think it. She can't say it.

In Greece, much to her delight, the stories she used to tell the children have spread like wildfire. She sees altars to Gods and festivals and the stories grow and grow and grow. Her heart flutters, and she decides she's happy.

She spends her days in the squares of Greek cities telling stories that enrapture audiences, developing the story of Dionysus, of Perseus, of Athena. The stories, by that point, have been taken in so well by the people of Greece that they adopt a life of their own. She hears stories of people who are sons of Zeus, or were taken in by the hunters of Artemis, or they really truly saw a satyr the other day.

Sometimes, Percy tries his hand at telling stories, and she watches, amused. It's a word she knows, but she can't think it. She can't say it.

(He asks her about why she fell, and she explains hubris. Explains how the Principality told her of a better society, and not only did she follow him, she believed him. She even thought she could help run it, building it to become great.

“I thought I could do better than God and Satan sometimes,” she confesses. “It's like- It's like- You know our wings?”

“Of course.” He stared at her like she was saying the most interesting things in the world, like everything she was saying was so serious.

“Well, imagine that they were held together by wax. I flew too close to the Sun, and all the wax melted, and I fell. That's how it went.”

“Are you okay?”

“Oh yeah. I'm totally over it.”

The next day, she went to get them some food, on break from storytelling, and came back to him telling all the kids about Icarus, a boy with wings held together with wax that flew too close to the Sun.

He beamed at her like he was proud of her for falling and giving him an interesting story to tell, and she rolled her eyes, but smiled anyway.

“Ass. You were telling those stories to embarrass me. Now I'm going to think about it for the rest of my life.” She hit him on the arm and refused to let him eat the first slice of bread.

“Well,” he replied with a shrug. “Never trust an Angel.” He grinned at her and popped a grape in his mouth. She hit him again.)

Everything is normal as it can be, if it weren't for the pair of them dancing around each other, but she doesn't want to upset the easy balance they have.

He makes the first move to tip the playing board.

It's late in the evening, and they're at a river. Since he first brushed her hair, she's joined him in the late nights when he washes his wings and hair. She didn't think she'd like preening, but she actually kind of does. She does most of it, and he catches the feathers she doesn't. It's peaceful, sitting in the river, as his hands trace across her wings. They shed the clothing, and it's like flying, almost, when she lays back in the water and floats along with the current. Her eyes are closed as he gets a few of the stubborn feathers out. She's already done him, and once he's finished with her, they'll head back to the town they're staying in at the moment.

“Antaeri?” He says softly from behind her, and she hums.

“Yes, angel?” She can't remember when she stopped calling him Angel as a title, and more as a pet name.

“I'm thinking I might change my name.” Unexpected, she thinks, and yawns, ruffling her wings a bit before allowing him to continue.

“Is that so? What are you thinking of changing it to?” His hands quicken, working in a flurry to loosen feathers, and in his suspicious hastiness, he accidentally tugs at a still-attached feather and she yelps in pain.

“Sorry,” he says with a wince when she turns to glare at him. She rolls her eyes, and twists her whole body around to face him. He's staring down at his hands, which are tapping out a quick beat against his knee, and he finally mumbles, “I'm changing it to Perseus.”

She goes “Oh.” Then she goes “_Oh_.”

There is something she wants, but she doesn't know what is.

“You think it fits me?” He whispers, and she can tell if she told him no, choose a different name, any other name, please _god_ choose a different name, he would choose something else.

There is a word she knows, but she can't say it. She can't think it.

“Yeah.” She grins at him, and reaches out a hand to move it through his hair. “Yeah. It suits you. Perseus.”

He laughs, relieved, and she feels herself fall. It hurts, and he's pulling her down to the bottom even if it kills her. She finds she doesn't mind so much.

-

She tells herself she's not going to panic. She swears to herself she's going to keep her head about her. She told him it suited him, she gave him his blessing, she can’t do it now, she and he thought they were fine.

Perseus has green eyes as deep as the ocean and he chose a name she made up, the happiest hero he could find, and she feels sick. It went down like a lead balloon, squeezed past her throat and choked her up, landed in her stomach and weighs her down.

She does something she's only _really_ done once.

She runs away.

(She ran away from Luke when she realized he didn't care. She left Perseus many times, but she never called it running away because she always came back. They always came back to one another. She feels stupid and slow because she didn't see this coming)

-

She leaves Greece, goes to Europe for a bit. Specifically, Britain.

She does her best not to think of him, but he is everywhere, she realizes. Spending most of your time on Earth with a singular other being isn't easily forgotten. He's in the water, and he's in the gold of the Kings, and when she sees the art they have in churches, from a distant, her throat closes up at the sight of white wings.

She likes Shakespeare. He's a wonderful playwright and storyteller, and he's unreasonably good with words. Her favorites, by far, are A Midsummer’s Night, and Macbeth. She watches the Fairy Queen fall for a man with an ass’s head, thinks about falling in love with unlikely creatures, and she sighs. She watches the way Macbeth tries desperately to avoid and also fall in with fate, and she walks away.

She stays there long enough she has to buy a living place, just a small section in a big building, and she's always prepared to drop everything and move again. She doesn't need to sleep, so she lays on the hard floor and thinks about the stars she cannot see because of the ceiling overhead.

A couple of years in, she hears rumors about a man with sea-green eyes and dark, windswept hair, and an aura of God Themself, so she throws a dart at a map and runs there as quickly as possible.

-

France is a good place, if you ignore the revolutions. She got there just in time for the big one, and laid low for a bit, watching the heads get chopped off. It wasn’t her scene. She could admire it in that really demonic way that’s part demon and part screaming bleeding human peasant who’s sick of not getting the life all humans deserve, but still. She's more interested in the architecture they have, as falling apart as it may be.

It's got great food. She was never big on the whole food thing, but the food is good enough for her to appreciate. She learns how to make crepes from the famous chefs, and she falls a little bit in love with the city. It's enchanting, and the way the people will talk with her even more so. She meets a man named Victor, a well-known French playwright, and for hours they speak of the architecture that falls around them.

He publishes Notre-Dame de Paris sometime later, and she reads it in one sitting over the course of several hours. She devours it, through the background melodrama, through the message of the architecture outliving us all, and she huffs out a laugh. Outliving everyone but her, maybe. And, well.

After the publication of the book, there's more of an uproar to save the church, and she is all for it. The places in France are amazing, she can't imagine a world without them, even when only a few centuries back, they weren't there at all.

She lives in a cottage with another woman who she honestly couldn't tell you the name of. She's German, or something of the sort. Out a lot, looking for jobs or a sweetheart or for a letter to come back home.

She is happy. She loves cities, but if there's one thing she missed, it was the open roaming she used to do. She used to be able to walk for hours through the natural fields of the Earth, moving for hours without encountering any living being besides animals and, well.

There are some other things she misses, but she doesn't dwell. It doesn't do her any good to dwell.

She changes her name to purchase the cottage, changes it to a much more human name. She spent several days brainstorming what she wanted to choose, both her first and last name. She thought back to Shakesphere, his lovely wife, and the play Macbeth. She decides on ‘Annabeth’ for the first one, which is unusual enough to elicit a bit of attention, and chooses the last name ‘Chase.’ From the moment she legally signs for the cottage with that name, she goes by Annabeth Chase.

She stays in the cottage until the woman moves out, and she lives alone for a while after. She stays in France a great deal longer than she spent in Britain, splitting her time between the countryside and the cities. Paris is particularly nice in the Winter, when the snow falls gently and there's a chill in the air that keeps mortals off the streets.

She helps out with an architectural firm, helps plan things. She learns she likes putting her hair up to keep it out of her eyes, and this is around the time when she decides once and for all she's never wearing a dress. The ladies look beautiful, honestly, but she's not exactly a lady. Besides, she put up with chitons for years. Pants were revolutionary in her eyes.

So that's how she lives for a while. Often staying in the country for the summer, and coming to Paris in the colder months, spending her time drafting plans for towers and houses and sprawling cathedrals. She always did like a system.

Then one day, she's working on some print for a house that's being built soon for some aristocrat of some type whose ruling line didn't get executed in the revolutions, when another worker of a slightly lower rank knocks gently on the door and says, “Monsieur Chase? There’s someone here who has requested to see you. Shall I let him in?”

“Hm? Alright, go ahead,” she mutters. If she were a little less focused on her drafting plan, maybe she could've prevented it. If she were thinking more clearly, she could've asked for a name. If she hadn't stayed so long in France and built up a facsimile of safety, maybe she would've been much warier.

“Antaeri?” A familiar voice says. Rough and well-known is the voice, and she freezes, pencil hovering above the paper where she was about to continue her drawing. She swallows, and slowly sets the instrument down, before sitting up and turning to face the figure standing in her doorway.

“I didn't know you were in the country,” she says softly. Perseus doesn't say anything, he just stares, drinking her in like a man lost in the desert longs for water.

“Hi, Antaeri. It's been a while.” He tries for a smile, but it comes out as sad. She stands up, and brushes the dust off her pants, even though there isn't any. The Angel in her stomach is running in circles, a million miles an hour.

Her brain suggests jumping his bones, suggests running away again, and most shamefully, suggests kissing him until the both of them are temporarily discorporated. Rather than do any of those things, she just sighs, and says, “Why don't we head to my place, and I can get you some lunch?”

-

Her Winter home is a flat decked in lights. The walls are cream, the tables are shining clean, and there are drapes everywhere. It’s a somewhat straightedge house, and Perseus remarks on this when he steps in. The only real splash of personal color is a painting hung up on one wall, and a bright orange shirt left sitting over her chair. She had gotten caught in the rain the other day, and had left it there to dry. If she could strangle herself, she would.

“You’ve been busy, huh, Antaeri?” He laughs as she pulls out coffee for the both of them, but even after years, she can tell he’s forcing it. It’s been a century, at the least, and if anything, they’re both feeling insanely awkward.

“It’s Annabeth,” she replies, grabbing cups. “I changed my name some years ago. Annabeth Chase. I needed to formulate a human name to purchase the land I have a cottage on, so, I switched it. I guess I could’ve done something with Antaeri still part of it, but, I don’t know.” She has her reasons, reasons she doesn’t think she can discuss with him for another couple thousand years, and not until she’s frightfully drunk.

“Oh.” That’s a sound she can’t dissect until she’s even drunker than frightfully drunk. Maybe fatally drunk. “Yeah, I changed my name again, too, for legal reasons, like you.”

“Oh.” Annabeth stops in her tracks, and swallows. It hurts, and she doesn’t feel like it should have a right to hurt. Her sound is eerily similar to his, and she does not dwell on this, promises not to dwell on it. “What did you change it to?”

“Percy. Well, Percy Jackson. Well, Perseus Jackson. It’s still Perseus, I just shortened it up, because you don’t see many Perseus’s around anymore. It’s a shame, but, hey. Gotta go with the times I guess.” The Angel in her stomach hops up and down. The Angel in her stomach is taking on a life of its own, and she thinks she’s going to have to go down there and beat it back into submission once Percy leaves.

“...Oh.” She pours the coffee and tries not to show any vibrating joy, especially when she put in the work not to show any crushing hurt. “Well, why don't we sit down, and we can.. talk about whatever it is you're doing here.”

“I live in America now, actually,” Percy tells her when they start eating several minutes later. She made the coffee by hand because she swears it tastes better when done the mortal way, but for the actual food, she just pulled a demonic miracle for the lunch. She decided on French Onion Soup was appropriate. “Montauk, New York. I opened a bakery there, near the ocean, a bit after I did a job down in Britain.”

She studiously tries not to think about her last time in Britain, and the whole running away business. “That's pretty far off. What brought you back to Europe?”

“I don't know,” he admits, moving his spoon back and forth in the soup. “I was fine, I guess. Business was doing good enough, I was living comfortably, I took trips up to the cities and I helped out one of those new summer camps they're holding that was nearby. Then one day this woman came in, and started talking about how she heard I was from Greece, and was like ‘blah blah are the Greek Gods thing real blah blah I swear Hera spoke to me blah blah do they still have any places of worship there blah blah.’ And once I showed her out with a nice pastry, I started thinking about all those stories, and then I started thinking about, well. You.”

Her stomach Angel, who's she's decided to give the nickname Monet, does a fist pump. “Me?” She croaks out, then clears her throat and tries again. “Me?”

Percy smiles, but it leaves quickly enough. “Yeah, you. Took me a while to find you, traveled across Europe, and then I was reading some French book, Hunchback something, and I read the dedication page, and it said something like ‘To Sir Antaeri, who sat with me for hours, and discussed the church with me with unwavering enthusiasm,’ and it clicked for me. France. After that, it was just asking around a bit.”

“That's dedication. I know it's the woman from the bakery that inspired you to do this at all, but can I just ask, why did you go through all the trouble of finding me?” Annabeth sipped her coffee, the pure picture of casual indifference. The some hundred pencils all over the apartment rattled with curiosity and barely restrained hope.

Percy swallowed, looked her right in the eyes, and said with a nervous tap of the foot: “I really missed you, Annabeth.”

She couldn't stop the bubbling laughter of relief that spilled out in response.

-

It shouldn't be so easy, to reintegrate into one another's lives.

Annabeth spends a year or two in France, tying up loose ends, while he prepares for her to come. He makes sure they stay in touch. _He missed her_ is all she can think about when his letters come, and once he said that, she decided she was done with the running. Running into his waiting arms, maybe.

Then after that, she goes to him. Travels by boat, decides she doesn't like it when she's seasick halfway there and stays green for at least another day or two once arriving on solid land. No, she'll let Percy stick with the sea.

Annabeth buys an apartment in Long Island, makes frequent trips to Montauk, with the ocean, and Percy, and his bakery he loves so much.

(“Smell the Flours bakery?” She screeched, a moment's away from cracking up.

“I thought it was funny.” He grinned, and she remembered Icarus flying towards the Sun. That was her, and she couldn't make an example for herself, so she couldn't care less.

“I love it.” I love-)

There was that saying, ‘Absence makes the heart grow fonder.’ Well, his absence from her life is tried and true, and she finds that she is so devastatingly, unquestionably fond for him, it's almost hard to speak. She looks at him, and the dictionary definition of Ineffable rings in her head.

She looks at Percy Jackon, Perseus Jackson, Persmare, and Monet the stomach Angel comes up to her shoulder and sings in her ear.

-

She predicted, when Percy came for her in France, that it would take thousands of years for the pair of them digest and discuss the changes in names, and the feelings they had about as such. In actuality, it took them about one-hundred and fourteen years.

It’s a hot summer evening, August eighteenth, year, two-thousand and nineteen. They sit on the shore of a Montauk beach, with the sun low. Annabeth is sitting on a towel with a picnic basket next to her, while Percy is kneeling in the water and scooping out interesting look seashells. She’s on her fourth mojito, and the smell of water, the alcohol, the color of the sunset, and the way Percy looks when he’s shirtless are all culminating in her feeling a- a- a something, deep in her chest.

He looks over at her with a goofy grin on his face, holding up a seashell that looks a little bit too much like a heart, and she giggles tipsily, sending him a thumbs up. After a moments deliberation, Percy shakes his head to rid himself from the water, and comes up onto the beach to her.

He kept up the wing-washing regimen for years, and she didn’t even think about it. Well, she did, sometimes, when she would do some swimming. She didn’t really swim all that much with Percy not around, so it didn’t cross her mind all that often. It wasn’t until the 1950s when he invited her to it again, that she remembered. She said no that time, mostly because she had to sit at home and drink, reevaluating all her memories of a time without him, inserting that particular fact into the narrative. He didn’t invite her again for seven years. That time, she agreed.

It isn’t one of those times. Sometimes, Percy just likes to swim. Their wings are perfectly enclosed in their beings, and he snorts, picking up his towel to wipe off his face. “I don’t know why you don’t want to get in. I mean, you’ve got on a bathing suit, so you’re all prepared for it. Even then, we’ve swam in more.”

“I don’t like the salt.” She drinks a little bit more, and indicates to the picnic basket. “Dinner. French Onion Soup. Miracled fresh and hot. And alcohol, naturally.”

“Naturally,” he repeats with a smile, opening the basket up. “When did we have this last, again? It was a couple of years ago at least, right?”

She watches as he pulls the bowls out, and leans back in the sand, closing her eyes and humming. “France. Years ago. Nineteen oh-four. When you, when you found me again.” Percy goes still next to her, and she cracks open an eye to find him just staring at her. “What? What are you looking at?”

“Do you remember France, Annabeth?” He asks softly. “I searched for you for a long time after you ran off. I was devastated. You were gone one day, and I couldn’t figure out what I did, but I couldn’t find you anywhere, and you didn’t come back.”

Annabeth swallows, sets her drink down, and crawls towards him, until they are much too close. “You named yourself Perseus.”

“Yeah. You gave your approval. I thought it… I thought-”

“Shh.” She brings a hand up to his face, and cups it gently. Something in her as old as Edan stirs, and she is _not_ drunk and has _no_ excuse to be doing this. “I know. I’m sorry.”

Percy leans into her touch, and gapes at her, all green, green heart eyes. “You changed your name, after you went missing, and it was hard to find you, because of that. I went calling your name, and asking the locals, and checking out every play or storytelling event, just looking for you in Britain.”

“I heard you came to town. I was there for years, Britain. I liked Shakespeare.” She chuckles, reaching around and circling her other arm around his neck. “You were right on the money, angel. I just wasn’t ready to be found. If I’m going to be honest, I changed my name for a couple of different reasons.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. One: Legality reasons. There was a legitimate need for a good name, but in all honesty, I could’ve kept Antaeri, one way or another. That brings me to two: I… realized you could’ve been searching for me through my name, and I was scared. I was so scared. And three: It was for me. It had been years and years and years, and you know what? I decided something.”

“What was that?” Percy murmurs, and she smiles fondly at him.

“I was done being a Demon, one way or another. I haven’t been the most devilish, but it was something that always kept me from taking the things I wanted, being the person I wanted to be. Antaeri was a name given to me when I fell. I decided I was done with below, and I decided I was done with the name tying me down. I’m my own person now. Have been. It just made it formal for me.”

His hands catch in her hair, tangling in the curls that make up the so-blonde-its-white mass, and he laughs. “I’m glad. I’m glad. Perseus was what I went for when I decided I was done. Percy, when Perseus hurt too much. It hurt to be called it, after you were gone. And now you’re back!”

“I am!” She scoots even closer to him and confesses, “It really hurt - when you said your name was Percy, not Perseus. And I couldn’t even be mad, I didn’t have a good reason to be mad, because I’m the one who ran away from you.”

“Why did you run away, anyway?” Percy looks at her, and she knows he knows. Within the space between that look on his face and hers, she decides she’s going to tell him about it anyway, for her, to get it off her chest.

“There was a word I knew, but I couldn’t say it. I couldn’t think it. I got scared. It wasn’t easy to stick around. Sometimes it still isn’t. You never make it easy for either of us, oh my god, angel. I-”

“Shh,” he says with a smile that makes her feel unspeakably safe. He throws his hands around her neck. “I am never, _ever_ going to make things easy for you, Annabeth Chase. Get used to it.” He kisses her, and she can feel the years culminating into that moment get lifted off her chest, like someone in Heaven had thrown a fishing rod down and hauled it all up, and the little Angel in her stomach sighed.

Annabeth kisses Percy back with such enthusiasm, with such finally requited longing, if anyone, if God and Satan and all their little armies decide to show up, raging war with humanity itself, she doubts either of them would even care. The almighty could wait. The Universe they fought for was a kiss, and they explored it thoroughly.

-

“I fell in love with you before you even fell, you know,” Percy tells her later that night. They’re lying in bed, both mostly naked, and she was leaning over a couple of blueprints she needed to check while he just watched her. It came out of the blue, and her head shot up.

“What? When was that?” She stares at him wide-eyed, and he just laughs, leaning his head back and covering his eyes with his arms.

“Millenia and millennia and millennia ago, in Heaven, before the rebellion and everything, I was minding my business, and I felt this gust of wind rush past me, and I looked over to where it came from, and I saw this Angel with the most wonderful gray eyes, and I thought ‘Wow.’ Renounced God and everything, just nobody ever bothered to check.”

“And we just happened to both be assigned to Earth?” She is grinning at him because he makes her feel dizzy and she can't believe anything he is saying, but she learned long ago that if there was one thing Percy was, it was honest.

“Maybe not. Maybe there’s something to be said about the Great Plan.”

She hums, giddy. “I was pulled aside by an Authority, Chiron, before the rebellion, and he told me that I would be saved by a Principality. I didn’t understand what he meant. I thought I did, and then I fell, and it didn’t make sense. And then I meet you, and years later I find out you’re a Principality. I guess it came true.”

“I wondered why you ran off from me once I told you that. I thought you were just embarrassed you’d hit Principalities three in a row.” She smacks his arm, and he rubs at it, beaming. “It was Chiron who assigned me to Earth, you know.”

“Oh my god. He was playing matchmaker the entire time.” Percy snorts, and she can feel a fire flickering gently in her chest. Not hellish, not holy, just the fire of a hearth. She grabs his hand, leans over, and whispers, “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

“Say it again, please.”

“You better not be laughing at me.” She smiles anyway. “I love you.”

Percy sighs happily, and she leans into him. A long time ago, there was something she wanted, but she didn’t know what it was. There was a word she knew, but she couldn’t say it. She couldn’t think it. She can now.

Rather than say it again, Annabeth just brings her face to his, and kisses him sweet. He tastes faintly of apples, and she decides that’s all she wants for eternity.

-

She’s the first one to the Garden. He’ll always be the second there, but he sought her out. Heaven and Hell collide when Percy holds her hand, so she decides on the one thing she will never, ever do as long as she is alive: she will never, ever, _ever_ let go.

In the Beginning, there was Nothing. After the Beginning, there was a Universe. In the Universe, there was him, and there was her, and most of all, there was love.

**Author's Note:**

> you would not BELIEVE the amount of words ive written that ive had to completely delete. i had to delete more than 2k words of a really fucking bad section. like. bad. dragged on like super duper badly. but thats okay! i replaced it with annabeth running away, leading to more PINING! can i get a wahoo!
> 
> on that note! this story was not inspired by good omens coming out to amazon. it was PROMPTED by gomens coming to amazon, but the most i drew from it was like, dialogue inspiration. what INSPIRED me to write this is actually a davekat angel/demon fic (its saved in my bookmarks actually!) which was in turn inspired by gomens the BOOK, so. hm. but it was the fic. i sort of drew the whole "angel names themselves after a star and the demon goes and disappears for ages cause oops love" from that fic. more drawn out, and not stolen or anything, but i did draw from it.l
> 
> so why i made annabeth the demon and percy the angel: like i said, i only pulled from gomens for dialogue inspiration. when i first watched it, i was still neck deep in my pjo hyperfixiation, and i thought the line thats like "i didnt mean to fall, i only ever asked questions" REALLY jived with annabeth. i wuv her ;w; but anyways just THINK. you just read through all of this. cmon. admit you love it. cmooooon.
> 
> my tumblr is [selkiecoded](https://selkiecoded.tumblr.com) and there you can find all my pjo posts in one convenient space. i can be pretty funny sometimes. ALSO i have playlists on spotify 4 [percy](https://open.spotify.com/user/annoyingandgay/playlist/3p8yAkSXjgHFKIbWjD5klu?si=oSpgp0VeQMOgA-i8fyjUxQ) and [annabeth.](https://open.spotify.com/user/annoyingandgay/playlist/3vEjSb7IomOY3xJTmsmU5s?si=W4OLeFtPQoaJm-U-lUyn8A) listen 2 em! theyre good


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